The Off-campus Hustle

Why struggle so much? It ain't important; it's just your off-campus try.
Isn't your CDC next year? Then why are you mailing these kinda guns?
Because of COVID opportunities aren't there dude, let it go...

Through all kinda advice and waves of words I received, let me first explain why I pursued it in the first place. So, I'm a Dual Degree student in my third year right now, which means I have my CDC (Campus Internship Drive) coming up this August. Although it never made sense to me to wait a year longer to get the same opportunities like the ones given to the B. Tech folks. When I pondered in comparison, there wasn't a skill imbalance; then why was there the bias? I had slogged my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year alike, and turning back now and peacing out didn't seem logical. Hence, I was fixated to churn out an equally prestigious opportunity with my own grit.

I started the battle from January 3rd (as I had made it one of my new year resolutions to not back down in the middle whatever may come (҂◡̀_◡́)ᕤ). Alongside, I was interning at Capital Float which was one heck of a workload in itself (around 5 hours daily commitment) and managing my academics with a 9 pointer side by side. So, the entire process was an excruciating eye killer for sure. So, let's start from scratch, shall we?

First of all, I prepared a suitable timeline keeping in mind my labs and other engagements. All in all, my schedule looked something like this:

1. Tuesday & Wednesday: Generate new leads
2. Thursday & Sunday: FOLLOW UP on the leads generated on Tuesdays
3. Friday & Monday: FOLLOW UP on the leads generated on Wednesdays

Luckily my time-table supported me here (as I didn't have labs on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). I would wrap Capital Float's work in the afternoons and mail in the evenings. While working for Corporate and Media Relations at Entrepreneurship Cell, I gained an arsenal of experiences to support me in mailing. I used to gather email-ids from our internal CRM - Lusha and always scheduled my mails for 8AM the next day. Lusha generally gives results with over 80% accuracy, so that wasn't a buzzkill. One can also refer Adapt, RocketReach, Hunter if they don't possess the charms of Lusha. And now moving on to the general questions...

1. Who to mail?

1. For top guns/ big sharks (whatever you like to call them): Go after Campus Recruiting HRs. Personal note: DON'T email partners or any other employees (and never to SDEs/ Analysts, they got no power to help you). I repeat, just DON'T waste your valuable time on any other department other than the HR.
2. In case of Soonicorns/ Unicorns: Mail the VPs of your profile, e.g., Data Science Head, Product Management Head, etc. If you feel bold enough, you can even target CxOs.
3. In the case of Small Fish (a startup with series B or smaller funding): Mail CEO/ CTO and no one below in the hierarchy. I never tried this section for summer internships actually, because as I mentioned earlier, I wanted a CDC level firm in my bag and plus I was already working in a soonicorn.

Personal note: I don't believe the fact that IIT KGP alumni will help you out just because they're your alumni. You gotta build a profile anyway, so don't rely on this crap. Even if you belong to a club which CDC respects, the chances of an alumnus jacking you an intern is miniscule.

2. How much to mail?

This is the toughest part. To be honest, it took me around 2 to 2.5 hours daily 6 days a week for 6 continuous weeks to score my fate. In total, I MAILED 230 PEOPLE with around 2-3 people per firm I applied to. Out of those, only 163 emails made their way, i.e., 67 emails bounced back (one can only imagine the frustration). The soup doesn't end here, there's more to the recipe. Mailing unique people just isn't enough, YOU GOTTA FOLLOW UP TOO. Through all of my emails, I had a mean of 8 follow-ups. And to my most dear leads, I maxed the follow-ups upto 10. Going above that didn't make any sense, as the person who didn't respond to you in 10 followups obviously doesn't wish to help you out anyway. Plus logically there has to be an end counter for the follow-up loop (cause nobody likes infinite loops,
duh STACK OVERFLOW ERROR). That counter was 10 in my case.
And yes, Please don't presume any conversion ratios beforehand, nor would I advise to keep any expectations. Some people get their offers in 50 emails, some in 100, and a few nutjobs like me who won't take no for an answer go for it vehemently. If circumstances don't chisel out a way, you must be ready to move on at the end of the day. Just don't get too emotionally attached (I'll explain my trauma shortly; even my victory didn't come that smoothly).

3. What to mail?

Make a delicious cover letter. Enough to give the HR/ receiver an orgasm. Imagine! The SDE folks fap on their code for more than 200 hours in total to score a good CDC. So why can't non-SDE folks spend atleast 10 hours coming up with a sexy cover letter? Getting the HR to just read your email is half the battle won. And the probability increases with every follow-up you put. Next, make an outstanding résumé. If your friends don't say that their ass cracked into 4 pieces by reading your résumé, then you gotta work harder on your content/ formulation. And yes, EVERY PROFILE GETS DIFFERENT CONTENT OFCOURSE. I had applied for 3 profiles in my case - Quantitative Finance, Data Science & Analytics, and Supply Chain, spending around 40 hours preparing my résumés. Why 3? - you may ask; it's because I still haven't figured out my career path yet. My problem is that I love everything I study.

Supply Chain - It's in my course curriculum in Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE), and I had already engulfed the entire bible of Supply Chain out of curiosity. So, I possessed MBA-level knowledge in this field.
Quantitative Finance - ISE made me super-proficient in Probability & Statistics. On top of that, I have a knack for money and investing. Plus, working at Capital Float in the consumer lending segment built my foundation for exploring more opportunities in finance.
Data Science & Analytics - Oh come on! Who doesn't know ML & DL? (If you don't, then off-campus is quite tough for you. I would recommend you instead code and crack CDC. There's no shame/ harm in that) ISE supported me here too as I got to cover heuristics (a form of AI) through my breadth and depth subjects.

Now, moving on, here are the firms from which I could score interviews/ tests.

1. Optym - My H.o.D. of IM Dept. referred me to the Indian M.D. of Optym for an opening they had. I had 2 good interviews, one with a Supply Chain VP of theirs and the next with their HR, wherein he told me all about the project I would be working on. Sadly, even with such kind of backing, I did not make it through (Reason given by HR: I haven't published a paper in Operations Research, and they wanted someone hardcore. PAIN!)
2. Gartner - HR took my telephonic interview and was pleased to hear about my past experiences. But in the end, it collapsed with her asking about my graduation year, which was 2023. So she was like, Oh wow! So Ashish, why don't you apply in the next 6 months on campus? We are sure you could become a good fit; NOTE: It's quoted unaltered. I was so damn frustrated, and it was freakin' 9:00 AM in the morning.
3. Standard & Poor: CRISIL Research - Got an offer for Market Research position, which I declined because they wanted me to start right away (and I was already working at Capital Float).
4. Capgemini - Got an offer for Cyber Analytics position. This was a good project, trust me, NLP + CyberSec + Analytics - I had all the skills required. But I rejected this one too, as it was fucking unpaid for 6 months! Personal Note: NEVER EVER DO UNPAID INTERNS, unless there's some ulterior motive. Your hardwork means something - it's valuable, don't just give your time away for free. If it's unpaid, then there's a high chance that your work is highly replaceable. Anybody can do it, so there's no fun!
5. CitiusTech - I had 2 interviews with their Data Science Lead. He was a Ph.D. and was very well versed in his field; he grilled me left and right in both the interviews like a barbeque. He told me to call one last time, but by then, I was pretty sure he was just mocking me and had no intentions to help my wagon. So I took the risk and let it go. Off-campus tries are full of such hellish experiences.
6. Frost and Sullivan - Got an offer for Ctrl+C|Crtl+V position. Yep, you read it right. My interviewer humbly advised me with great insights and told me that I was too good for the internship work at Frost. He recommended to search for better opportunities and gave an assurance that if I fail to find anything good by March-end, I should recontact him again. He told me that this internship would neither add any value to my CV nor my bank account. I'm so thankful for his kind words; very few people show such caring for random strangers. He even recommended me to a Fortune 50 company which was his client at that time (and I did apply there but received no response from them).
7. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearance - I was given an interview opportunity but I didn't fill-up the form (I didn't wish to waste the interviewers' time with my lack of Mandarin language skill, which perhaps turned out to be their prime requirement).
8. CRED - Agh, Jesus UwU! It was a nightmare! 3 interviews here - 1 with CRO, 1 Case round, 1 Analytical round. I screwed the case and analytics rounds so bad, so very bad that I cried after the interviews got over. I have been reading Victor Cheng daily for the last 4 months; hence, I knew the frameworks and the tactics. But still, it was my very first case interview, so I fucked up big time. And I made so many calculation errors in Analytics round that I would have gotten a -50 score in JEE if I replicated them there. It was a pretty devastating rejection in the end, but anyway, I got to keep my head high and learn from experiences.
9. Hewlett Packard - I was hanging out with my Crush and totally forgot about their test (─‿‿─). I know it sounds weird, right? But for some reason, I have no regrets xD. Anyway, I was skeptical about HP, as they were paying well but had a 5-month internship timeline which I didn't adore.
10. Pine Labs - Got an offer for Data Engineering position. I had 2 interviews, HR (20 min) and Tech (45 min). I nailed both of them. The HR was so impressed that she kept nagging me to fill the documents asap and sign the offer letter. But I kept stalling as I was eagerly awaiting confirmation from IBM.

Alacrity Abound - IBM

The process was neat. I had a psychometric test initially, which was exciting! I realized my reflexes are supremely great.
(Thank you to the 200 hours playing Invoker @ Dota 2 ♥)

Then it was a classical interview that lasted for 60 minutes. The interviewer was an Engagement Partner in their Management Consulting Division (IBM Global Business Services). She was at a super high position in the hierarchy and I prepped accordingly to breakdown my technical jargon into consulting language. Thankfully, my mindset and preparation gave 100x output. She asked me to explain my previous internships and my life story and I kept it all at a Business/ Management level by saying things in terms of the revenue uplift I brought at Capital Float and the number of man-hours I saved in my previous internships. She was also keen to know about my productivity in online mode and lockdown and I nailed this section too by bringing in my Entrepreneurship Cell activities. In the end, she asked me if I was familiar with Cloud, to which I honestly replied, "NO, but I would love to explore it." Then she asked about Analytics and I reiterated my projects and competition work by throwing some big names and numbers. All in all, I was pretty sure after the interview that if she ignores the Cloud part, everything should work out well.

And it sure did! I banged a fantastic opportunity with the 100-year-old firm as a Cloud Analyst Intern.

Takeaways

If you have read till here, I am truly grateful to you for listening to my heartfelt story with the constant ups and downs. Looking into the past from today, I feel kinda dizzy imagining the health deterioration I went through that ordeal. But now, I am glad that it all boiled down to something.

Remember:

1. Always have a backup plan! Don't be fixated on getting a summer internship in a do or die format. I know ambition is good, but internships aren't the end. Even I had almost given up on mailing by February 13. I had chalked out a plan for my cheapskate; it was to study for my CFA and do CP in the summers.
2. Whatever you decide - YOU MADE THE CHOICE, YOU CHOSE.
   There are countless times where you might have to make crucial decisions that could alter your future 1-year timeline. So once you decide, there's no turning back. Make decisions thoughtfully by doing a SWOT analysis if you have to. And yes, if you can't decide in a day for something - you can't decide in a lifetime - so just let it go then.
3. Please don't fall for peer pressure. You aren't interning for someone else. You are taking the pain for yourself, which only you will understand. So, stop comparing and just open your inbox and start mailing.
4. It's okay to cry, to feel devastated, to be rejected, to feel you are a worthless piece of shit, and that the entire world is conspiring against you. It's alright there's no shame to have nobody to share the pain with. Even I cried a bit every night before going to bed. And by February, I was hallucinating things that I would never have thought of, even in an Acid Trip. I had nobody to put hashtags or photos for me on social media. Heck, even my parents were too busy with their jobs that even they didn't grasp my tenacity. To be honest, even I feel that I haven't achieved a milestone, cause during the entire time, I lost my sense of HAPPINESS and was just lusting about materialistic success.
   Finally, here's the truth on which I have gotten quite a hold of through my experiences:

The world is not a wish-granting factory...

To hedge the culling vibe, here's the list of firms which rejected me directly onspot - No Questions Asked

List of firms which didn't even care to respond

And there were a couple other firms more in loop, but I didn't chase them till the end as I got bored

As you see, it all depends on how much you wish to push yourself. There was a point while mailing where I couldn't even come up with new company names to target - the list felt exhausted, so I had to scourge names from Forbes and Fortune xD. Just remember that there are atleast 500 great companies (Fortune 500) built by the mellow blood and sweat of hard-working people. So whenever you feel low and wish to give up or get tired, or worst - feel to procrastinate...
REMEMBER you just require One Offer outta those 500.

And even if the probability is very low, it aint zero!

In the end, I would love to acknowledge my 5 best friends: Myself, Alok, Mansi-chan, Johncy, and Rada and my 2 role models: Roronoa Zoro and Lelouch vi Britannia whose personalities I admire and feel grateful for having them in my life to propel me towards being a better human.

For the showdown, he're my résumés for reference -->
Finance, Tech, Supply Chain
For anybody who would love to ask me something, hit me up on LinkedIn or at ashish.gokarnkar@iitkgp.ac.in!